A fairly wide variety of electrical components or electronic devices are mounted on substrates such as a printed circuit board within a computer. Such items can range from sophisticated computer chips to electro-mechanical components such as cooling fans. Although varying in sophistication or complexity, such items are electrically connected or interfaced with circuit traces on the printed circuit board.
With an electrical component such as a cooling fan, the fan/motor is mounted in a component frame. The frame is independently mechanically mounted to the printed circuit board. The fan/motor has electrical lead wires terminated to a component connector which hangs freely or "dangles" from the fan assembly. The component connector is mated with a header connector mounted on a surface of the printed circuit board independently of the mounting of the component frame on the board. Such a system not only requires multiple assembly steps, but the freely hanging connector which is terminated to the fan lead wires causes entanglement problems during shipping, handling and assembly. The present invention is directed to solving these problems by providing an electrical connector assembly wherein the component connector is integrated directly with the component frame.